TUSCALOOSA | Anyone could walk into a school in the Tuscaloosa County School System without much difficulty before Dec. 14, 2012.

By Jamon SmithStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | Anyone could walk into a school in the Tuscaloosa County School System without much difficulty before Dec. 14, 2012. But on that day, things changed across America. A gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that morning and killed 20 children and six adults before committing suicide.“We have not forgotten what happened in Connecticut,” said Dan Butler, interim superintendent of the Tuscaloosa County School System. “We cannot forget what happened in Connecticut.“You can’t walk into our schools anymore,” he said. “That’s unfortunate, but we have to protect what is our responsibility.”Butler told the school board Monday that a preliminary security survey, conducted on the system’s schools a week after the Sandy Hook massacre, showed the system’s school buildings need $467,000 in safety improvements.“Some of our schools have open foyers, and it’s hard to control the flow in and out of the buildings,” he said.Assessment teams are conducting another security audit of every school in the system, this time examining the buildings and school security practices and procedures, Butler said.The assessment will be complete Feb. 18, and a report will be given to the school board.“We’re now locking our outside doors and classrooms and having regular visits by sheriff deputies,” Butler said. “We also have school resource officers in each of our six high school zones who visit every school.”Also at Monday’s meeting, school officials gave an update on the search for a new superintendent and named a new principal at Brookwood Middle School.School board member Mark Nelson said the superintendent position was posted on multiple job sites last week. He said the Alabama Association of School Boards, which is conducting the search, reported that it received numerous inquiries from potential candidates even before the position was officially posted.Meanwhile, Becky Brown, principal of Woodland Forrest Elementary School, was named the new principal of Brookwood Middle School.Butler said he chose Brown because she has a wealth of experience in K-12 education.Brown said she’s excited about her new assignment and is looking forward to returning to Brookwood Middle, where she was a cheerleading coach for nine years and a seventh-grade social studies teacher for 13 years from 1993 to 2006.“I feel like I’m going home,” she said. “Brookwood Middle was my first job as a teacher. I’m going to get some second-generation students. Some of my former cheerleaders’ and students’ children will be there. “Having that second generation experience is such an honor,” she said.Brown taught at Brookwood Middle for three months before being transferred to Tuscaloosa County High, where she taught in 1992 and 1993 before returning to Brookwood Middle. She was assistant principal of Northridge High school from 2006 to 2008; principal of University Place Middle School from 2008 to 2010; and principal of Woodland Forrest for the past three years.Brown received a master’s in administration and educational leadership from the University of Alabama in 1998 and bachelor’s in education from UA in 1992.